Tuesday, March 05, 2013

Moroccan Jews of the Amazon come home

A particularly exotic group of immigrants is expected to arrive in Israel
soon: About 100 Jewish Indians living in a jungle on the banks of the
Amazon River in Peru. But these Jews trace their ancestry back to 19th century Morocco. Ynet News has the extraordinary story (with thanks: Michelle):

After a five-year struggle, 53 Jews who claim to be descendants of lost biblical
tribe make aliyah from village in northeastern India. 'We've been
waiting for this moment for hundreds of years,' one of them says.
Their story begins towards the end of the
19th century. Young people with Jewish roots, mostly men, immigrated
from Morocco to Peru and settled in Iquitos – a remote Indian city in
the Amazon rainforest, considered one of the most isolated cities in the
world to this very day. The areas can only be reached by boat or plane.

The group members planned to integrate into the rubber wood
export industry, which is very popular in the region – and to make a
good fortune from their business.

The men in the group – mostly young bachelors – maintained a
Jewish lifestyle at first, but as time went by they married local Indian
Christian women. Over the years, they had hundreds of offspring who
knew about their Jewish roots, but because of their surroundings they
found it difficult to adopt a Jewish lifestyle.

A couple of decades ago, a connection was made between the
Jewish group in Iquitos and the Masorti Movement, which attempted to
bring them to Israel. A small group of immigrants arrived in the Jewish
state in the 1990s. Several years later, another group made aliyah. They
all underwent Conservative conversion before immigrating.

The rest of the community members continued their life in
Iquitos, some dreaming of immigrating to Israel one day and not
forgetting their Jewish roots for a moment. They began adopting Jewish
customs, marking Shabbat, praying at a local synagogue they built and
requesting to be buried in a Jewish plot in the local cemetery. Mezuzahs
and pictures of Stars of David can still be seen on many of the
community members' doors.

Twelve years ago, 250 of the community members underwent a
Conservative conversion process – and continued to dream about Zion.
Yedioth Ahronoth has learned that some 100 of them appealed to the
Jewish Agency recently in a bid to fulfill their dream and immigrate to
Israel.

Rabbi Andy Sacks of the Masorti Movement clarified that all
group members held documents proving that they had been lawfully
converted. Jewish Agency officials expressed their enthusiasm over the
idea and began working on an aliyah plan, but the Interior Ministry
demanded further clarifications in regards to the conversion process.

The issue is now under discussion, with all parties awaiting the
Interior Ministry's decision. Once the green light is given, the
Indian-Jewish magic carpet will hit the road.

The 100 Jews seeking to make aliyah hold a variety of
professions: Merchants, teachers, government workers and rickshaw
drivers, who will likely have to consider a career change.
The group members range in age from babies to people in their
80s. Some have kept their Jewish names, including Pinto, Levy and
Abramovich.

Now all that remains is to wait for them and hope that they are absorbed in Israel as fast and as well as possible.
Sharf, director of the Jewish Agency's Aliyah, Absorption and Special
Operations Unit, told Yedioth Ahronoth: "Many of the community members
have relatives who arrived in Israel in past years and successfully
integrated into the Israeli society. Now the relatives left in Peru want
to unite with their family members and build a future in Israel."Read article in full

But amazingly the pendulum swings and the numbers sometimes rise again. Years ago Poland had almost no Jews and Germany's Jewish population had been decimated. Now both countries are experiencing a resurgence and the Jewish presence is vibrant and growing.

When at university an American told me "the gates of heaven are guarded by Marines" i think he was wrong and that Jews guarded those gates. When Hugo Chavez reaches them, he will not be allowed to enter.sultana

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Introduction

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)